The piece details new "molecular scanners" which work something like Big Brother's wildest wet dream, detecting each an every chemical substance on your body.

The scanners are being commercialized by Genia Photonics and employ terrahertz speed laser pulses. The laser hardware is capable of detecting -- even through clothing or windows -- the slightest trace amounts of chemicals on the human body. Genia claims the scanner is ten million times faster and one million times more sensitive than any other scanner -- such as the millimeter wave-based detectors.

The DHS is eyeing new laser scanners to scan and detain "suspicious individuals" at police checkpoints in public locations. [Image Source: Genia]

Genia writes that the scanner can "penetrate clothing and many other organic materials and offers spectroscopic information, especially for materials that impact safety such as explosives and pharmacological substances."

Thanks to the speed, the DHS is reportedly looking to deploy the scanners secretly at inter-state borders, international borders, and in airports.

The deployment raises some thorny issues, given the scanner's ability to detect such small traces of compounds. For example, smoke a bit of marijuana in a region where it's decriminalized or legal for medical uses, and you may now be arrested by DHS officers at the state border. Alternatively, you might go shooting at the gun range, but the trace amounts of gunpowder left on your clothing might earn you a date with "Mr. Happy Hands" of the U.S. Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) or DHS.

You match the profile, prepare to be frisked. [Image Source: The Denver Post]

II. DHS Eyes Plotting Scanners in Shopping Malls and Other Locations

In fact, DHS agents are eyeing the possibility of rolling the devices out all across the country, scanning everyone in any public location possible for signs of suspicion.

In-Q-Tel, the DHS contractor who is subcontracting Genia writes, "an important benefit of Genia Photonics' implementation as compared to existing solutions is that the entire synchronized laser system is comprised in a single, robust and alignment-free unit that may be easily transported for use in many environments… This compact and robust laser has the ability to rapidly sweep wavelengths in any pattern and sequence."

A scan takes only picoseconds and can be performed at distances of up to 50 meters, making it big brother's dream device.

III. Deployment is on Pace for 2013-2014

The creators are confident they can deliver on their objectives of ubiquitous privacy intrusion. Founded by a group of laser and fiber optic Ph.D specialists, Genia is among several Universities and firms worldwide making similar ambitious claims of laser scanners with molecule-level sensitivity.

A trip to the shooting range could soon make you wind up in federal custody.
[Image Source: Flickr]

In Congressional testimony the DHS revealed that deployment was only a year or two away, meaning the devices could start popping up in 2013.

From there, there's no telling how far down the dystopian things could go with molecule scanner. The scanner can sense signs of fear -- such as adrenaline -- even through car windows or in crowded shopping malls. The DHS has already acknowledge publicly experimenting with such "future crime" profiling efforts. In those projects the DHS expressed a desire to detain individuals in public locations who fit certain profiles that indicate they might be ready to commit a crime.

Will anxiety about a big deadline at work lead you to be handcuffed in front of your children at the shopping mall? There's no official word yet on such uses, but the hints are there, and the possibilities are frightening.

With this Technology.. We can now kiss ALOT of things goodbye. Only safe place to be, is not here. Predictive crime?? Sounds like MINORITY REPORT Garbage to me. Can sniff from 150 Ft, if i Smoked a JOINT a few days ago???

I can see them putting ALOT of these devices, in 1... Schools.. 2.. Obviously Court houses.. 3.. Definitely at sporting events.. All in the quest to grab the latest boggie man..

Ok then. Don't come to us when the U.S. Government starts enforcing their food control policies and small arms treaty with the UN.

Down here, we know how to grow food, build shelter, and shoot. Have fun when s*** hits the fan buddy. And don't think it isn't coming soon enough either. We have been putting it off for a long time now.

(oh, we also have the vast majority of the military too. Good luck with that as well. Every military member I have ever met would rather rot in hell than turn against their own friends and family)

I guess the south would because if you're not in a major population center on the coast then you most likely own guns, hunt, and still hate government intrusion.

The probably with CA is that while we have a lot of people that don't support any of the retarded things that go on in our state. Just the damn liberals out number everyone else yet only live in a small geographical area compared to the side of our state.

Oh, I wasn't saying that we should have a civil war. I'm with you, the federal government need to be knocked back down more than a few pegs. And it needs to be done by the American people as a whole; not divided.

Guess I should have explained more with the "south will rise again" comment. That wasn't meant to be taken as another civil war with north vs south lol.

Exactly. A Civil War would be disastrous now versus how it was a couple hundred years ago. The degree of weaponry citizens have and abstract methods our technology now affords us would lead to something quite nasty.

If Americans want a revolution it should be versus the entire Federal Government. They've gone too far and sometimes,

quote: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

We need to fight/abandon Federalism specifically with great prejudice. I hope people are paying attention to who is currently in charge when these types of measures are being implemented. Fascism is something heaped on the right but the truth is the ideology of the current leadership lives breaths and eats it.

Pfft, if you thinks it's bad for you, what will they do to me? I shoot Com-bloc surplus almost exclusively. What will they think when I walked around covered not only in Soviet! gunpowder, but also potassium chlorate?!

The steel they use for the casings is incredibly soft and and poses no danger to your chamber or extractor. What does happen, is that when the chamber pressure drops, the case will contract and allow a little bit of powder blow-back in the chamber. But that just requires cleaning.

As for the bullet tech, the steel used in the bullets is almost as soft as copper, and produces very fine fouling instead of the large chunks that normally break off with copper. The actual construction of the bullet is as follows:

The bullet jacket is bi-metal and has a thin copper outer-layer followed by a soft steel inner jacket; the completed round is copper-washed, which is what you are thinking of. Underneath the jacket is a layer of lead that is used to suspend the steel core - when the bullet strikes the target, the core shifts inside of the jacket to destabilize it and create erratic wound patterns - and gives the bullet the proper plasticity to form to the bore without causing increased wear.

The Russians have been putting steel through their firearms since shortly after WW2...which reminds me, some WW2 vintage ammo came up for sale...I think they have pretty much perfected the art! Besides, I'm using a 6.5lb Chrome-Moly chrome lined bore on my Mosin. If I manage to wear it out in my lifetime the Russian gun gods will have to descend from the heavens to shake my hand! :P

As a sign of good faith, perhaps all politicians that think this is a great idea should have to have these devices installed in their homes. Just to show how safe it is, and how no one could be wrongly accused of something :)

I think all the alarm regarding trace chemicals is overblown. There is such a thing as calibration, and I'm sure reasonable thresholds can be set to minimize false positives. I mean, it's all but certain that the power of the return signal correlates directly with the quantities of the chemical in question.

For some things, even trace amounts could be informative and significant (e.g. normal people shouldn't have traces of C-4 or anthrax powder on them). For hard-core narcotics or gunpowder, it may just be a matter of configuring a higher signal threshold for alarm (and as for weed specifically, IMO it ought to be decriminalized altogether, but that's a different discussion.)

Yes, every detector technology has its problems and failure modes, of which its operators and subjects should be aware. But for instance we're probably better off with highway cops using radar and lidar guns, vs. having no such technology at hand to snag speeders and dangerous drivers (in fact, we probably should have automated detectors installed at regular intervals all over our freeways to do this sort of policing; e.g. in Germany they've had this for decades.) Analogously, it won't hurt to have an extra layer of monitoring in public places (such as transportation hubs and shopping malls) that have previously been or come up in discussion as terrorist targets.

And speaking of automated detectors on highways, I think it would be nice to have them detect excessive quantities of alcohol vapor or weed smoke inside car cabins (if indeed they can successfully scan through windshields) and particularly as concentrated around drivers. That could help cut down a lot on DUI's, consequently boosting personal safety of all the law-abiding drivers, and at the same time reducing the societal costs of all the DUI-related accidents and their consequences.